Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was an Indian novelist, poet, essayist and journalist. He was the author of the 1882 Bengali language novel Anandamath, which is one of the landmarks of modern Bengali and Indian literature. He was the composer of Vande Mataram, written in highly Sanskritised Bengali, personifying India as a mother goddess and inspiring activists during the Indian Independence Movement. Chattopadhayay wrote fourteen novels and many serious, serio-comic, satirical, scientific and critical treatises in Bengali. He is known as Sahitya Samrat in Bengali.
Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly was an Indian poet, novelist, short story writer, historian, and critic in the Bengali language. He was one of the foremost poets experimenting with new forms, themes, rhythms, and words in Bengali poetry in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953, along with Deepak Majumder and Ananda Bagchi, he founded the Bengali poetry magazine, Krittibas. He is regarded as one of the most prolific and popular writers in Bengali since Rabindranath Tagore.
The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet, i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy, during the 1960s in Kolkata, India. Due to their involvement in this avant garde cultural movement, the leaders lost their jobs and were jailed by the incumbent government. They challenged contemporary ideas about literature and contributed significantly to the evolution of the language and idiom used by contemporaneous artists to express their feelings in literature and painting.
Jayanta Mahapatra was an Indian poet. He is the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry. He was the author of poems such as "Indian Summer" and "Hunger", which are regarded as classics in modern Indian English literature. He was awarded a Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in India in 2009, but he returned the award in 2015 to protest against rising intolerance in India.
Buddhadeva Bose, also spelt Buddhadeb Bosu, was an Indian Bengali writer of the 20th century. Frequently referred to as a poet, he was a versatile writer who wrote novels, short stories, plays and essays in addition to poetry. He was an influential critic and editor of his time. He is recognised as one of the five poets who moved to introduce modernity into Bengali poetry. It is said that since Rabindranath Tagore, there has not been a more versatile talent in Bengali literature.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to the US where she studied further. She returned to India and taught at several universities and institutes as well as serving in various positions in literary institutes. She published more than 80 books in Bengali: poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children's literature. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999.
Subhash Mukhopadhyay was one of the foremost Indian Bengali poets of the 20th century. He is also known as the "podatik kobi" in the field of Bengali literature. A book of thirty of Subhash's best known poems in English translation, titled ' As Day is Breaking', was published in 2014 by Anjan Basu, a Bangalore-based writer/critic. The book includes a rather detailed introduction to the poet's work as well. He was honoured with Jnanpith Award in 1991.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
The little magazine movement originated in the 1950s and 1960s in many Indian languages like Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalam and Gujarati, in the early part of the 20th century.
Roopa Ganguly is an Indian actress, playback singer and politician. She is best known for her portrayal of Draupadi in B R Chopra's hit television series Mahabharat. Often promoted as the Tollywood's answer to Bollywood's Shabana Azmi, she is known for her versatility and accent adaptation. She has worked with directors such as Mrinal Sen, Aparna Sen, Goutam Ghose and Rituparno Ghosh. She is a trained Rabindra Sangeet vocalist and a classical dancer. She received several awards including a National Award and two BFJA Awards. In October 2016, she was nominated as a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, by the President of India. She served as the President of BJP Mahila Morcha in West Bengal. She served as the General Secretary and the Vice-President for the West Bengal Motion Picture Artistes' Forum, a body representing cine artistes. Her films have commulatively grossed more than US$100 million worldwide.
Bishnu Dey was a leading Bengali poet, writer, essayist, academician, art appreciator, and connoisseur in the era of modernism and post-modernism.
Joe Winter is a British poet, literary critic and translator of poetry. A recent long poem is At the Tate Modern. His translations of the Bengali poets Rabindranath Tagore and Jibanananda Das are published by Carcanet Press, and his versions in modern English of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf and the Middle English poem Pearl are with Sussex Academic Press. SAP has also published Two Loves I Have: a new reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Hide Fox, and All After: What lies concealed in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'?
Samir Roychowdhury, one of the founding fathers of the Hungry Generation, was born at Panihati, West Bengal, in a family of artists, sculptors, photographers, and musicians. His grandfather Lakshminarayan, doyen of the Sabarna Roy Choudhury clan of Uttarpara, had learned drawing and bromide-paper photography from John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, who was Curator at the Lahore Museum, and thereafter established the first mobile photography-cum-painting company in India in the mid-1880s. The company was later taken over by Samir's father Ranjit (1909–1991). Samir's mother Amita (1916–1982) was from a progressive family of 19th-century Bengal renaissance.
Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Tollywood or Bengali cinema, is an Indian film industry of Bengali-language motion pictures. It is based in the Tollygunge region of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932. It was a historically important film industry, at one time the centre of Indian film production. The Bengali film industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema's most critically acclaimed global Parallel Cinema and art films, with several of its filmmakers gaining prominence at the Indian National Film Awards as well as international acclaim.
Jara Brishtite Bhijechhilo is a Bengali film based on Joy Goswami's story Jara Brishtite Bhijechhilo, released in 2007. The film was directed by Anjan Das and stars Indrani Halder, Anjana Basu, Sudip Mukherjee, Alokananda Roy and Joy Sengupta.
Anupam Roy is an Indian singer-songwriter, music director, composer, songwriter, guitarist, playback singer, engineer from Kolkata, India. He made his debut with Amake Amar Moto Thakte Dao & Benche Thakar Gaan, which appeared on the soundtrack of the 2010 Bengali film Autograph. Since then, he has gone on to compose, write lyrics and sing for many Bengali films.
Churni Ganguly is an Indian actress and director who mainly works in Bengali movies and television productions. She received the Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards in 2005 in the best actress category for the movie Waarish, in which she played a single-mother's role. She won two National Film Awards for her directorial ventures Nirbashito and Tarikh.
Utpal Kumar Basu was a Bengali poet and story teller.
Rajat Chaudhuri is an Indian novelist and short story writer. He is the author of the critically acclaimed works Hotel Calcutta (2013), a short story cycle; The Butterfly Effect (2018), the novel Amber Dusk (2007) and other books. He is also an environment columnist, book reviewer and literary critic. His fiction blends persuasive storytelling with experiments in genre, structure, form while addressing themes like climate change, biotechnology, urbanism, and genetic engineering. His fiction has been featured in the climate change video game Survive the Century.
Prabal Kumar Basu is an Indian poet, essayist and editor. He writes in his mother tongue Bengali.
